Meet the Flock Roundup – May & June, 2017

Meet
Veronica the Easter Egger, a prolific layer of green eggs. Veronica's in her
5th year and was the only Easter Egger of her generation to lay continuously
through this past winter. Such a hard worker! And very pretty to boot!

Here's
a 2013 baby picture of Veronica. She was a very strikingly pretty chick with
her black "eye liner". She also had a black "V" on top of
her head, which pretty much demanded that she be given a "V" name!

Here's
a nostalgic look back at Angitou the Gold Laced Polish hen from last summer.
Angi went through two molts last year. Her spring molt resulted in this
gorgeous full golden plumage with the black penciling. After the fall molt,
most of the black penciling is gone and there's a lot of white feathers in her
crest - a much more mundane appearance. It's sad that she lost all of her
pretty feathers, but I still love her anyway.

While
spring molts are a little unusual, that's exactly the project Courtney the
Silkie has decided to undertake. And it's a good thing, since she was in
desperate need of some new feathers. She spent all winter with an
embarrassingly exposed chin, as you can see in this picture. I guess I should
have found a little chicken muffler for her to wear!

Barbara
Barred Rock thinks there's nothing quite as fresh or delicious as scratch right
out of the scratch bucket!

Meet
Moe and Paula the Salmon Faverolles! Moe and Paula are about 24-hours-old in this pic and in those few hours had experienced very eventful lives . First they had to peck their way out
of their shells, then they were put in a box and had a very long car ride.
After that they were able to settle in under a warm heater with their friends,
discover the water fount and peck at bits of chick food. After the initial
excitement, life settled down for these little girls.

Meet
Rose and Valerie the Golden Laced Wyandottes, two days old in this shot. In this picture
Valerie is trying to crawl under Rose because....well just because.

When this picture was posted on Facebook,
these two little three-day-old Speckled Sussex chicks couldn't be properly introduced because
they didn't have names! I asked for suggestions and my readers took the challenge and offered a whole bunch of good suggestions!

By the time the Speckled Sussex chicks were four days old, names had been selected and Pippi and Squawky seemed to be happy with the final choice, a variation of "Pip" and "Squeak" suggested by a faithful reader. I liked the name "Pip" quite a bit. The process of a baby chick
pecking it's way out of an egg is called "pipping". I decided to modify
Pip to Pippi to make it a bit more feminine - and also because as a kid I was a
big fan of Astrid Lindgren's "Pippi Longstocking" books. "Squeak" is a
great description of the sound both of these babies make right now, but as they
get older the sound they make is definitely going to sound more like
"Squawk"! And then, my four-year-old grandson independently came up
with the name "Squawky" which impressed me, the doting grandpa, quite
a bit!

Ten-day-old Rose
the Golden Laced Wyandotte chick pauses in her constant caroming around like
fuzzy ping pong ball just long enough to give her chin a little scratch.

It's been so fun to watch the chicks' social interactions as they sort out
their pecking order. If Squawky is not the top banana, she's definitely in the
leadership circle. Squawky is two weeks old in this shot and has just sprouted brand new wing
feathers - the speckled pattern on those little feathers will cover the rest of her body as the rest of her feathers
come in!

Valerie
the Golden Laced Wyandotte chick and her friend Pippi the Speckled Sussex, both seventeen days old in this shot, hang
out in the "chick clubhouse" (aka the top of the heater).

At three weeks old, most of the babies were well into the process of molting off their baby fuzz and replacing it with their first feathers. I call this stage, when they're no longer cute chicks but have not started looking like pretty hens, their "squawkward adolescence". Moe and Paula the Faverolles are late bloomers, though, and are still cute and fluffy! Here's cute and fluffy Moe.

Here's Valerie at three weeks, definitely beginning her "squawkward adolescence" and looking a bit ungainly. But, ungainly or not, she's got to be the world's friendliest chick! While the other chicks are shy when I go into the brooder coop and run away, this little girl runs TOWARDS me! I've dubbed her "Val the Pal"! Here she says, "Ride around on your hand? No prob! Sounds like fun!"

Buffy the Buff Orpington from Coop 1 chats thru the fence with Snowball and Courtney the white Silkies from Coop 2 about egg production, fluffy feathers, and whatever else it is that chicken neighbors talk about.

Betty the Easter Egger is now living by herself in the center part of the pole barn - normally a chicken free zone that I use for storage and parking the tractor. She's not the first hen to spend time here and I'm sure she won't be the last. First Betty developed some sort of
leg weakness. It's not obvious when she's walking, but she didn't have the leg strength to launch herself up onto the roost or up to the nest boxes. The flock
"mean girls", who seem to be aware of that sort of thing long before
I ever am, were bullying this pretty little hen incessantly--following her
around and pecking her mercilessly. So I decided she needed to live by herself for a bit to heal. Then, she did something that made my jaw drop to the floor. Out of the blue one day, she started crowing. It is extremely unusual for a hen to crow! Roosters crow! Sometimes (and this is also extremely rare) hens undergo a spontaneous sex change and become roosters. Is Betty the Hen now Bob the Rooster? Stay tuned. I'm sure there will be lots more on this story.

A sad goodbye: I am very sorry to report that Arlene Barred Rock departed this world on June 24. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that I've written about Arlene on several occasions. Anyone who would be so harsh as to use the phrase, "just a chicken" has probably never had chickens, and more specifically, never knew Arlene. I'm going to miss this sweet little hen.

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Mission Statement

Hi! I’m Randy and this is my chicken blog. I write it, edit it, take the pictures, feed the chickens, hug the chickens, etc. I blog because a few years ago, I got these chickens…I had no idea when I got my first chickens that I would get attached to them and become this sentimental, crazy old chicken guy. I had no idea that each chicken would have its own personality, that chickens had such a huge range of vocalizations that they literally “talk” to each other, that they have this amazing, intricate social structure, or that there would be so much drama in the coop—love, conflict, friendship, sex, motherhood, anxiety—a virtual soap opera playing out before my eyes every day.

So I write these little vignettes about my birds that are mostly whimsical but also mostly true. In the process of telling my stories I also pass along a variety of views and opinions which are completely my own. Please also bear in mind that the information I share regarding my care of my chickens has come from my experience caring for my flock. I’m not a veterinarian and I have had no formal education in any kind of chickenology.

There are a few facts that I hope to get across to anybody who regularly reads my blog:

1.My chickens are really cool.

2.All chickens are really cool.

3.The majority of chickens being raised for meat or egg production, in spite of their inherent coolness, are treated cruelly. You can help make changes by your purchasing habits. Educate yourself! Read labels! Check company websites!